


Kettle

by fraisemilk



Series: Onomatopoeia [9]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Fluff, Gen, featuring the feeling of green, morning musings, otae's night life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 11:36:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15706434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraisemilk/pseuds/fraisemilk
Summary: How nice night appears to be now, now that you have learned to like it for what it is full of.(Otae comes home in the morning, drinks tea, and goes to bed.)





	Kettle

You yawn, and the kettle sings its song. It’s dawn; the shadows are stretching long and pale in the garden. You look up at the clock: “7:02,” it tiredly murmurs, ticks and tocks lost in the kettle’s continued complaints. You open the cupboard that is right next to the fridge, and choose the greenest cup. You feel like green today, perhaps because spring is coming, or simply because of one of these recurring, familiar stories a client told you a few hours ago, something about… water lilies? You can’t remember the details of the story. What you do remember is the idea of _green_ that permeated it, and the client’s sighs at lost words and images, and his hesitation at telling you his secret – a vulnerability that you’ve become accustomed to but has somehow retained its touching marvelousness. When you had showed interest in his story, he had looked at you with the eyes of a child who experiences kindness for the first time. Once, you had had a hard time accepting this defenselessness in others and in yourself. Now, you welcome it with open arms. What people and love can do to you, for you…

Do you still remember the times when you were still afraid of the night? When you hadn’t yet been witness to such vulnerability coming from mere strangers?

You feared the shadow of the old tree in the courtyard, and ran away from the flickering moon in the small pond. You shivered with the thought that something, someone, could be hiding behind the wall. Imagined a whisper coming from the shimmering figures swimming in the depths of the water.

You were scared of the slightest noise, partly because of the tales that taught you the monsters hidden in the closet would bite your toes. How easy it was to fear the night for what it lacked –

(Sunlight, people, rumors, footsteps, laughter)

How nice night appears to be now, now that you have learned to like it for what it is full of.

You gently pour the kettle’s water in the green cup, watching attentively as the vapor gasps away in the cool air, and the color of the tea twirls and becomes part of the water. Stop yourself from yawning again; you’ll soon be in bed. Drinking slowly, you sit facing the garden, and watch the shadows and the pond, still plunged in darkness. It is still quite early. You feel the dampness of the night floating away from the earth, a light chill on your skin. In these early hours, it seems the world has not entirely settled yet.

Even the smells are different, softer, as if they had been liquefied in the first sun rays.

In the night, what you see and what you smell and what you touch feels… coagulated. Things are thick in all this iridescent liveliness.

Footstep shuffling in the corridor: Shin-chan is awake. Time to go to bed. You leave the cup in the sink – your brother will take care of it. On your way to your bedroom, you take another look at the clock: “7:23.”

It’s a beautiful morning. You will sleep soundlessly.

In your dreams, shy smiles and water lilies will appear; you sigh and close your eyes, not afraid of the dark it brings. How easy it is now to love the night for what it is full of: sunlight, people, rumors, footsteps, laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> These stories which constitute the whole of the Onomatopoeia series were meant to constitute a whole; so that what you have read so far is in fact one single story. I have poured in its details things that belong to my personal life, or the life of others (or: details that I have imagined in the lives of others). I am 23 now, and I am getting ready to leave my mother country, France. Between now and the time I began this series, there seems to be a gap, whose borders are plunged in darkness, so that i couldn't determine how big it is, or how deep. In this gap I have stopped watching and reading Gintama, stopped being involved in its fandom, but I have never stopped loving it. Gintama has brought me so much: tears, smiles, friends. Gintama saved me, in many ways. That is the power of fiction - especially of optimistic fiction. Its story (its stories), and their unrelenting happiness convinced me that living was, perhaps, worth it.  
> Perhaps this is what I've been trying to convey in Onomatopoeia. Now I am turning a page of my life.  
> I am working on several short stories like this one, as a way of concluding this series.  
> As always, kudos and comments (!!!!) are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Best.


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